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A Comparison of Two Female Slave Narratives Miya Hunter-Willis Marshall University Marshall Digital Scholar Theses, Dissertations and Capstones 1-1-2008 Writing the Wrongs : A Comparison of Two Female Slave Narratives Miya Hunter-Willis Follow this and additional works at: http://mds.marshall.edu/etd Part of the African American Studies Commons, American Literature Commons, and the Women's Studies Commons Recommended Citation Hunter-Willis, Miya, "Writing the Wrongs : A Comparison of Two Female Slave Narratives" (2008). Theses, Dissertations and Capstones. Paper 658. This Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by Marshall Digital Scholar. It has been accepted for inclusion in Theses, Dissertations and Capstones by an authorized administrator of Marshall Digital Scholar. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Writing the Wrongs: A Comparison of Two Female Slave Narratives Thesis submitted to The Graduate College of Marshall University In partial fulfillment of The requirements for the degree of Master of Arts In History By Miya Hunter-Willis Dr. Robert Sawrey, Ph.D., Committee Chairperson Dr. Daniel Holbrook, Ph.D. Dr. Jerome Handler, Ph.D. Marshall University October 2008 ABSTRACT This thesis compares slave narratives written by Mattie J. Jackson and Kate Drumgoold. Both narrators recalled incidents that showed how slavery and the environment during the Reconstruction period created physical and psychological obstacles for women. Each narrator challenged the Cult of True Womanhood by showing that despite the stereotypes created to keep them subordinate there were African American women who successfully used their knowledge of white society to circumvent a system that tried to keep their race enslaved. Despite the 30 years that separate the publication of these two narratives, the legacy of education attainment emerges as a key part of survival and binds the narrators together under a common goal. Pursuing a formal education and becoming a part of academia emerges as the method that Jackson and Drumgoold use to improve their status and support others in the racial uplift movement. Finally this thesis suggests that the efforts of ex-slave women translated into an important contribution to our understanding of plantation life and the methods of resistance to slavery. The female slave narrative brings historians closer to recognizing the unique and often underestimated resilience of the African American community. DEDICATION To Grandma Dot: You were my inspiration for completing this project. Your support was a constant reminder especially when I felt like giving up. I hope to live up to your example. To George: For the tough love and reminding me that “excuses are tools of the incompetent.” iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to thank my committee for their patience during this project. Working long distance was tough, but we got through it. I still owe you oatmeal cookies. Many thanks go to my Mom. A mother’s love is unconditional. Even when you weren’t around, I could hear your words echoing in my mind. Thank you for crying with me and rejoicing with me. Paul & Shirley Willis, Penny Jacobs, and my extended family. Thanks for the phone calls, free babysitting, impromptu visits, and prayers. You kept me grounded and guaranteed that I would finish the degree. To Ray, Jyl, Sarah, Issaia, and Kesha: Thank you for the laughter. Your jokes were right on time. There were many days when I looked forward to your company. Your friendships mean the world to me and I hope that I can return the favor. My gratitude goes to LaUanah King-Cassell, my “Aunt Doodie,” for her advice and words of wisdom. Special thanks to Dr. Jerome Handler who was more than a committee member. You forced me to recommit myself to the thesis. You never gave up on me. Special thanks to my “Grammar Queen”, Christy Rockholt Baker, for taking the time to comb through this project and give it “fresh eyes.” Last, but certainly not least, I want to thank my husband, George. There aren’t enough words to describe how much you guided the completion of this project. You believed in me even when I wanted to give up. Thank you for your thoughts, edits, and ability to discern when I needed Ben & Jerry’s. You said that I have the “D”, so now you have my “A.” iv TABLE OF CONTENTS ABSTRACT…………………………………………………………….....…….…….ii DEDICATION……………………………………………………………….....…….iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS…………………………………………………………..iv TABLE OF CONTENTS…………………………………………………………..…..v INTRODUCTION……………………………………………………………….…..... 1 CHAPTER ONE: Removing the Veil….…………...…………………………….…..8 CHAPTER TWO: Mattie J. Jackson: Defiance Translating into Action………...28 CHAPTER THREE: Kate Drumgoold: Finding Life Beyond the Shackles….…..53 CHAPTER FOUR: Education: Agent for Change………..……………………….72 CHAPTER FIVE: Writing Themselves Out of the Margins….……………………88 CONCLUSION..……………………………………………………………………... 93 BIBLIOGRAPHY.…………………………………………………………………….97 CURRICULUM VITAE…………………………………………………………….105 v INTRODUCTION Slave narratives represent a number of things to the history community. Written primarily over the 18th and 19th centuries, these intensely personal texts detail incidents from the lives of former slaves. The general consensus among scholars is that there were about 200 narratives published between 1760 and 1947 with nearly half being published before the end of the Civil War.1 While many narrators wrote under the tutelage of abolitionists and some wrote to challenge the stereotypes professed by the slaveholding society, all formerly enslaved authors reflected on slavery as an emotionally and physically debilitating institution. Yet, these same narratives illustrated encouraging tales about slaves who successfully escaped, families that were reunited, and most importantly, people who defied expectations to become leaders in their communities. This genre of writing has emerged as an essential source of information about plantation life because it was told by people who had experienced slavery first hand. 1 Sources vary as to the exact number of slave narratives that were written. Many include the former slave oral history initiative conducted by the Federal Writer’s Project. That particular project, which will be referenced later, accounts for work that was not written by ex-slaves.; True Tales of Bondage and Freedom: 19th Century Slave Narratives, Publishers’ Bindings Online: Slave Narrators. University of Alabama; [website]; available from http://bindings.lib.ua.edu/galler/slave_narratives.html; Internet; accessed 20 February 2008.; David Blight, “The Slave Narratives: A Genre and a Source,” History Now, Issue 2, December 2004, in The Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History, [on-line journal]; available from http://www.historynow.org/12_2004/historian3.html; Internet; accessed 20 February 2008. 1 Of the hundreds of slave narratives published only a few were written by women.2 Well- known narratives by Frederick Douglas, Josiah Henson, and Henry Craft eloquently portrayed how African American bondsmen struggled to secure independence within a society that labeled them as less than human. While their accounts were informative, male ex-slave narrators failed, unsurprisingly, to accurately address and interpret how a woman survived under similar conditions. The obvious questions are why were so few narratives published by women, what did they write about, and why is the female perspective significant? Anna Julia Cooper, famed 19th century racial activist and feminist, theoretically answered those questions by stating, “‘tis woman’s strongest vindication for speaking that the world needs to hear her voice…Hers is every interest that has lacked an interpreter and a defender.” 3 This thesis examines female ex-slave narrators and how they translated their lives into the narrative form. To narrow the scope, the lives of two women are compared through the events re-counted in their narratives. Mattie J. Jackson published her narrative, The Story of Mattie J. Jackson; Her Parentage, Experience of Eighteen Years in Slavery, Incidents During the War, Her Escape from Slavery: A True Story in 1866 and Kate Drumgoold published A Slave Girl’s Story, Being an Autobiography of Kate Drumgoold in 1897. Combined, their accounts covered 2 “ ‘I will be heard!’: Abolitionism in America,” Division of Rare & Manuscript Collections, Carl A. Kroch Library, Ithaca: Cornell University; [website]; available from http://rmc.library.cornell.edu/abolitionism/narratives/Narratives.htm; Internet; accessed 20 February 2008. The Division of Rare & Manuscript Collections at Cornell University was the only source that claims that 12% of slave narratives published were written by women. “North American Slave Narratives” found in Documenting the American South, Chapel Hill: The University Library of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 2004; [website]; available from http://docsouth.unc.edu/neh/chronautobio.html; Internet, accessed 22 September 2008. According to the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill’s Documenting the South collection, 140 slave narratives were published between 1800-1899; this figure also accounts for narrators that published multiple versions of their narratives). Of those 140 narratives, women wrote only 14 narratives (about 10%) according to their list of publications. I believe that the disparity between the number of male and female-authored narratives is why we lack sufficient information about the female slave experience. 3 Anna Julia Cooper, A Voice from the South (Reprint, Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 1988; Xenia: The Aldine Printing House,
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